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“The message of ‘Sidetracked,’” Gino said in an interview, “is that a
lot of these forces happen even though we are unaware of them. People
might just not realize how powerful expressions of gratitude are.”

In two of the gratitude experiments, Gino worked with Professor Adam Grant of the Wharton School.
They first asked 57 students to give feedback to a fictitious student,
Eric, regarding his sloppy cover letter for a job. Half were emailed a
terse confirmation: “I received your feedback on my cover letter.” The
other half received gratitude: “I received your feedback on my cover
letter. Thank you so much! I am really grateful.”

When Gino and Grant measured the students’ sense of self-worth
afterward, 25 percent of the group that received just an acknowledgment
felt higher levels of self-worth, compared with 55 percent of the group
that received thanks.

In a follow-up experiment, participants received a message from
another fictitious student, Steven, asking for feedback on his cover
letter. Would participants who had received thanks from Eric be more
likely to help Steven? Indeed. More than double the percentage of
students in the gratitude group (66 percent) helped Steven, versus just
32 percent of those in the no-gratitude contingent.

“Receiving expressions of gratitude makes us feel a heightened sense
of self-worth, and that in turn triggers other helpful behaviors toward
both the person we are helping and other people, too,” Gino said. She
described the scope of the “gratitude effect” as “the most surprising
part” of her research.

Gino built on the research in a field study that looked at 41
fundraisers at a university, all receiving a fixed salary. The director
visited half of the fundraisers in person, telling them, “I am very
grateful for your hard work. We sincerely appreciate your contributions
to the university.” The second group received no such expressions of
gratitude. What was the impact of the director’s thanks? Gino said that
“the expression of gratitude increased the number of calls by more than
50 percent” for the week, while fundraisers who received no thanks made
about the same number of calls as the previous week.

“I spend a lot of time working inside organizations and see teams
working together to accomplish a task, usually with a deadline,” she
said. “Oftentimes, you don’t see the leaders going back and actually
thanking the team members. Those are situations where expressions of
gratitude from leaders could have wonderful effects.”

Gino has seen those effects up-close, in both her own behavior and that of those close to her.
“My husband is now working for a start-up. I received flowers and a
note from his company’s CEO thanking me for my understanding because my
husband had been up all night working on a big project.” The gesture was
a motivator for her husband, Gino said.

The work behind her book, she said, “really makes me think more
carefully every time I am the one expressing gratitude to others. I
don’t want to miss opportunities. … I learned from my own research and
now try to say ‘thank you’ much more often.”